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Tolerance and Living Ethically - Avoiding Judging People
Essay One of the key challenges for people who want to live ethically and make conscious decisions about what they wear, eat, live in and go from A to B in, is that people can feel threatened by the choices to live in a more informed and concerned manner. Yes, it is easier not to care where your clothing comes from, how many people worked in the sweatshop getting underpaid for making it, and how poorly paid are those selling it to you from a large discount chain that has eaten up farmland on the outskirts of town, requiring you to drive your car a long way to get there because public transport doesn't go as far as the bargain store... But to live in denial is no better than to be a judgmental person who wants every person held accountable for their decisions in life on how they live. In each case, we are seeing opposite extremes of a spectrum of living. Some people just go through life taking the easiest path of least resistance and some people want to herd everyone else up into "doing it right". Ethical living is about making personal, responsible and informed choices. It is not a new "fundamentalism" as some choose to tag it. Labelling something a fundamentalism is a way of pushing it to one side, dismissing it as a fly-by-night nuisance or something that might be here to stay but only in the "eccentrics" basket. Other accusations include a fear that the "greenies are sending us back to the Stone Age", or that "those do-gooders want us all living in caves and wearing hemp shirts". These types of trumped-up charges are a means for suggesting that there is no point caring about what impacts our choices have because even if we do, nothing ever changes; or, at the less conscious end, they demonstrate a fear that people are being asked to give up lifestyles to which they have become happily accustomed. They are challenging remarks that should be responded to but they are not a reason for giving up and not caring. In following an ethical lifestyle, people matter. As such, judging people for what they do wrong, is not the first motivation of someone practising ethical living. However, there is definitely a limit to how forgiving a person should be of entrenched practices that destroy lives, livelihoods, resources, and the health of our environment. If we accept that the polluter has rights to go on polluting because it has always been done this way, hasn't that person just bullied us into accepting something that hurts our lifestyle? It cuts both ways. An ethical lifestyle devotee would not be asking for the polluter to sack the entire workforce. Rather, we seek for the polluter to find means to reduce or remove the polluting by changing practices, looking for safer, non-polluting alternatives and lobbying government to be there during the transitional phase. Ethical living is not about having a whole lot of people lose jobs, work fulfilment or aspirations. Instead, it is about ensuring jobs, work fulfilment and aspirations. Changing habits takes time, even more so for communities and countries. The incremental steps already being taken are monumental. People are conscious of fair trade, proper working conditions, set work hours, healthy building standards, animal rights, carbon credits, reusing materials etc in the new millennium. None of this happened overnight. Think back 20, 40, 60, 100 years ago. Human societies in industrial nations were not conscious of the things we are conscious of today. Even if conserving energy is motivated by saving money rather than caring for the environment, we have many ways to embrace motivational means that will result in better ends for the environment and sustainable lifestyles. As those of us motivated to learn more about living ethically and putting into practice the things we learn - gradually, incrementally, or even quickly where we can - we must also carry along tolerance, understanding and good faith. Judge not lest we be judged too. By the same token, however, do not allow the challenges of those motivated by fear, misunderstanding and misplaced sense of trumping rights over rights, to cause you to question your choice. Address their concerns, answer them factually and calmly, for ultimately, we are all in this together and societal change takes time before we all begin to see the sense of treading more gently upon the Earth that nourishes us. Category:Consumer Ethics